
The Proceedings 

by the 

State of Connecticut 

in comtnetnoration of the 

Tercentenary Anniversary 

of the 

Landing of the Pilgrims 
on Plymouth Rock 



\j 



1620-1920 




\-..i- (X-V...A ^^^^ :WoaeU..\T^^r-4/^ 



The Proceedings ^^^ 



by the 

State of Connecticut 

in cotmnetnoration of the 

Tercentenary Anniversary 

of the 

Landing of the Pilgrims 
on Plymouth Rock 

1620-1920 



f^2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

MAY 231921 

DOCUMENTS DIVISION 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1. Prefatory Note 5 

2. Program of public meeting at Hartford, De- 

cember 21, 1920 7 

3. Historical Address 

by Williston Walker, Ph.D., D.D., L.H.D., 
Provost of Yale University 17 

4. The "Public Letter" from the State to her 

school children 37 



PREFATORY NOTE 

In 1919 a Special Act, in the following terms, was 
passed by the General Assembly of Connecticut: . 

"An Act making provision for the participation by this State in a 
celebration in commemoration of the Three Hundredth Anniversary 
of the Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in 
General Assembly convened^^ 

Section 1. A commission consisting of the Governor and Lieuten- 
ant-Governor, ex officio, and nine other members all to be appointed 
by the Governor, is raised for the purpose of representing this State 
and making such arrangements and plans as may be fitting and 
appropriate for the participation by this State in a celebration of 
the three hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth Rock. Said commission shall serve without compensation, 
but their necessary expenses shall be paid by the State and it may 
employ such stenographic and clerical assistance as may be neces- 
sary to carry out the purposes of this Act. 

Sec. 2. The sum of three thousand dollars, or so much thereof as 
may be necessary, is appropriated for the use of said commission 
and all expenditures incurred under the authority of the provisions 
of this Act shall be approved by the board of control. 

Approved May 21, 1919." 

The nine members to serve with the Governor and 
Lieutenant-Governor of this Commission were appointed 
by his Excellency, Governor Holcomb, on February 25, 
1920, as follows: Simeon E. Baldwin, of New Haven; 
Frank B, Weeks, of Middletown; Charles E. Thomp- 
son, of Hartford; Rev. Frederick W. Harriman, of 
Windsor; Edward S. Boyd, of Woodbury; Charles E. 
Gross, of Hartford; INIiss N. Louise Mitchell, of Hart- 
ford; Mrs. Clarence B. Bolmer, of New Haven; Mrs. 
Sara T. Kinney, of Hartford. 



His Excellency, Governor Holcomb, having declined, 
on account of the pressure of other official engagements, 
to serve as chairman of the Commission, Simeon E. 
Baldwin was appointed to that position. 

The Commission voted to make the main features of 
the celebration, first a general public meeting at Hart- 
ford, on December 21, 1920, and, second, meetings of 
school children, so far as practicable, in every school 
house in the State, during the preceding school term; 
and on October 1, 1920, announced its action by a 
circular letter to school officials, which concluded as 
follows : 

"At such meetings, it is desired that there may be one or more 
short talks, appropriate to the occasion, from one of you, with music 
and singing, if practicable, and other appropriate exercises. A copy 
of a Public Letter from the State to her school children will be given 
to each child present at any such meeting. 

The Commission requests each of you to arrange or join in 
arranging such a meeting of the school or schools with which he 
is particularly connected." 

A copy of the "Pubhc Letter" from the State to 
her school children, prepared by the Commission, is 
annexed to this j)ublication. 250,000 copies were 
printed, of ^^ hich about 190,000 were distributed through 
the schools in the State, including eighty-four private or 
parochial schools. 

Local celebrations of the tercentenary in these schools 
were quite general. 

On December 21, 1920, the general public meeting- 
was held at Parsons' Theatre, in Hartford, according 
to the following program : 




December the Twenty-first 



Celebration 

by the 

State of Connecticut 

of the 

Tercentenary Anniversary 

of the 

Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers 
at Plymouth Rock 



"A great hope and inward zeall they had of laying some good foundation, 

or at least to make some way thereunto . . . yea, though they should be 

but even as stepping-stwies unto others for ye performing of so great a work.''"' 

— From Bradford's '''^History of Plymouth Plantation,'' page 32 



CELEBRATION 

As Authorized by the Connecticut Legislature of 

1919 

in commemoration of the 

Three Hundredth Anniversary 

OF THE 

Landing of the Pilgrims at 

Plymouth Rock 

1620 



Parsons Theatre Hartford, Connecticut 

December the Twenty-first 
1920 

AT TWO-THIRTY o'CLOCK, P.M. 



" Thus out of smalle beginnings great things have been prodiised by Uis 
hand yt made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and 
as one smalle candle may light a thousand, so ye light there kindled hath shone 
to many, yea, in some sorte to our whole nation.''^ 

— From Bradford's " History of Plymouth Plantation," page 332 



PROGRAM 



The Honorable Simeon E. Baldwin, Presiding 



Singing 
By the Audience 

Led by the 

Boys* and Girls' 

Glee Clubs 

of the 

Hartford Public 

High School 

Ralph L. Baldwin 
Musical Director 



A Message from the 
State of Connecticut 



INVOCATION 

Reverend Rockwell Harmon Potter, D.D. 

Minister of the First Church of Christ in 

Hartford, Organized 1632 

"FOREFATHERS' HYMN" 

Tune, Duke Street 

O God, beneath Thy guiding hand, 

Our exiled fathers crossed the sea ; 
And when they trod the wintry strand, 

With prayer and psalm they worshipped Thee. 

Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the prayer: 
Thy blessing came; and still its power 

Shall onward, through all ages, bear 
The memory of that holy hour. 

Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God 
Came with those exiles o'er the waves ; 

And where their pilgrim feet have trod 
The God they trusted guards their graves. 

And here Thy name, O God of Love, 
Their children's children shall adore. 

Till these eternal hills remove 

And spring adorns the earth no more. 

— Leonard Bacon. 1833 

'A PUBLIC LETTE,R FROM THE STATE OF 

CONNECTICUT 

TO THE CHILDREN OF HER SCHOOLS" 

Read by 
Miss Clara M. Coe 
11 



A group of Melodies 

from the 

Pilgrim Psalm Book 

Sung by the 

Glee Clubs 



EXPLANATORY STATEMENT 

By 
Professor Waldo S. Pratt^ Mus.D. 

'BOW DOWN THINE EAR," From Psalm 86 

Bow down Thine ear, Jehovah, answer me, 

For I am poor, afflicted and needy. 
Keep Thou my soul, for merciful am I ; 

My God, Thy servant save, that trusts in Thee. 

Jehovah, be Thou gracious to me, 
For all the day call unto Thee do I, 

Thy servant's soul rejoice Thou cheerfully. 
For, Lord, I lift my soul up unto Thee. 

'BY BABEL'S RIVERS," From Psalm 137 

By Babel's rivers, there sat we, 

Yea, wept, when we did mind Sion. 
The willows that amidst it be 

Our harps we hanged them upon. 
For songs of us there ask did they 

That had us captive led along. 
And mirth, they that us heaps did lay — 

"Sing unto us some Sion's song !" 

Jehovah's song how sing shall we 

Within a foreign people's land? 
Jerusalem, if I do thee 

Forget, forget let my right hand ! 
Cleave let my tongue to my palate. 

If I do not in mind thee bear. 
If I Jerusalem do not 

Above my chief est joy prefer! 



'CONFESS JEHOVAH," 



From Psalm 136 



Confess Jehovah thankfully. 
For He is good, for His mercy 

Continueth for ever. 
To God of gods confess do ye. 
Because His bountiful mercy 

Continueth for ever. 
Unto the Lord of lords confess. 
Because His merciful kindness 

Continueth for ever. 
To Him that doth Himself only 
Things wondrous great, for His mercy 

Continueth for ever. 

12 



Which in our base state minded us. 
Because His mercy gracious 

Continueth for ever. 
And from our foes did us release. 
Because His merciful kindness 

Continuetli for ever. 

Which giveth food unto all flesh. 
Because His merciful kindness 

Continueth for ever. 
To God of heavens confess do ye, 
Because His bountiful mercy 

Continueth for ever. 



Reading of 



All Sing: 



THE PILGRIM COMPACT 
By 

Colonel Charles Edward Thompson 

Governor 

Connecticut Society of Mayflower Descendants 

"AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL" 

To the Tune of Materna 

O beautiful for spacious skies. 

For amber waves of grain. 
For purple mountain majesties, 

Above the fruited plain; 
America ! America ! 

God shed His grace on thee. 
And crown thy good with brotherhood, 

From sea to shining sea. 

O beautiful for pilgrim feet. 

Whose stern, impassioned stress 
A thoroughfare for freedom beat 

Across the wilderness ; 
America ! America ! 

God mend thine every flaw. 
Confirm thy soul in self-control. 

Thy liberty in law. 

O beautiful for glory-tale 

Of liberating strife, 
When valiantly, for man's avail. 

Men lavished precious life; 
America ! America ! 

May God thy gold refine. 
Till ail success be nobleness. 

And every gain divine. 

13 



O beautiful for patriot dream 

That sees beyond the years, 
Thine alabaster cities gleam, 

Undimmed by human tears ; 
America ! America ! 

God shed His grace on Thee, 
And crown thy good with brotherhood, 

From sea to shining sea. 

— Katherine Lee Bates. 190i 



Address by 



bmgmg 

by the 

Boys' and Girls' 

Glee Clubs 



Provost Williston Walker, Ph.D., D.D., L.H.D. 

of Yale University 

"WHY WE HONOR THE PILGRIMS" 



(fl) "THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER" 

Out across the broad blue ocean. 

Daring wind and wave, 
In their hearts a firm devotion, 

Sailed the Pilgrims brave. 

Calm or tempest might betide them 

Still with purpose grand 
Fared they on with faith to guide them 

To their chosen land. 

On and on the Mayflower plowing 
Through the trackless deep. 

Bore the ones with fervor vowing 
Heaven's pledge to keep. 

Through the lonely sea that held it 

In its mighty scope. 
Strove that ship while truth impelled it 

Toward the land of hope. 

With their valor tried and tested. 

Their long voyage o'er. 
Home at last the Pilgrims rested 

On a new found shore. 

There they toiled with faith undaunted 

And with purpose high, 
And in their splendid zeal they planted 

Truth that shall not die. 

— Nixon Waterman 

14 



All Sing 



Appreciation is extended 

to Messrs. Gallup & Alfred 

for the use of the Mason 

and Hamlin Piano. 



(6) "LAND OF OUR HEARTS" 

Land of our hearts, upon whose bounteous breast 
Earth's weary sons from many lands find rest, 
Bind us in love, that we may truly be 
One blood, one nation, everlastingly. 

— John Hall Ingham 



"AMERICA" 

My country ! 'tis of thee. 
Sweet land of liberty. 

Of thee I sing; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the Pilgrims' pride. 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring ! 

My native country, thee, 
Land of the noble, free, 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills. 
Thy woods and templed hills. 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze. 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song: 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake. 
Let rocks their silence break. 

The sound prolong. 

Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of liberty. 

To Thee we sing: 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light; 
Protect us by Th)^ might, 

Great God, our King. 

— S. F. Smith. 1832 



BE,NEDICTION 

By the 

Right Reverend Chauncey Bunce Brewster, D.D. 

15 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS 

By WiixiSTON Walker 

December 21, 1920 

We are gathered here to-day, a part of a great com- 
pany who during the past few weeks have been observ- 
ing the three-hundredth anniversary of the landing of 
the Pilgrims. Celebrations of momentous significance, 
with distinguished speakers, and often with generous 
planning, have been held, and are being held, not merely 
in the principal cities of this country but in Great 
Britain and in Holland. Leyden, where the Pilgrims 
made their home vmder the protection of the Dutch 
government, and the older Plymouth, from which they 
sailed as the final port from which to begin their momen- 
tous voyage, have been in particular the scene of note- 
worthy commemorations . 

Such a wide extent of celebrations in so many dif- 
ferent countries implies an unusual interest in this three- 
hundredth anniversary, and the existence of reasons for 
this general acclaim of more than customary signifi- 
cance. The founders of any long-enduring state com- 
mand grateful recollection whatever may have been the 
motives that may have led to their resultful immigra- 
tion, and however unromantic may have been the causes 
which induced them to seek new homes. But in the 
case of the Pilgrims a perennial interest attaches by 
reason of the picturesqueness of their endeavor and a 
significance inheres in their enterprise on account of the 
motives and aims which induced their great adventure. 

17 



The general features of the history of the Pilgrim 
enterprise are so familiar that it is not necessary on this 
occasion to recount them in detail. Every school boy 
and school girl knows, or should know, the outstanding 
facts of Pilgrim story. The speaker will therefore 
recount simply in the most cursory way the more obvi- 
ous features of this Avell-known tale. England had 
witnessed repeated and far-reaching religious changes 
during the sixteenth century. Its original Roman 
Catholicism had been transformed by that "tyrant 
under legal form," Henry the Vlllth. into a polity 
and manner of worship in v^^hich the system, while re- 
maining essentially Roman in doctrine, had rejected 
the authority of the pope and substituted for it the 
Tudor sovereignty, had confiscated monastic founda- 
tions, and had given to the people the Bible in the Eng- 
lish tongue. The succeeding brief administration in 
the name of Edward the Vlth., had ordained the use 
of a liturgy in English, and had enforced doctrinal 
creeds of a decidedly Protestant character, only to be 
succeeded, under Queen IMary, by the restoration of 
the Roman authority and the reestablishment of the 
older form of worship, though without the restoration 
to their former owners of the confiscated ecclesiastical 
foundations. With Elizabeth, governmental authority 
had svxaing in tlie Protestant direction. The liturgy was 
again put into English, the Queen was now supreme 
governor of the church, and by her nomination its bish- 
ops were appointed. Queen Elizabeth, who was herself 
without profound religious convictions, was of remark- 
able political gifts, which she employed to the utmost 
in this struggle. Her task was one of exceeding diffi- 
culty. The majority of her subjects were unquestion- 

18 



ably Roman Catholic in sympathy at the beginning of 
her reign, while a strong Protestant minority desired 
to secure an earnest Protestant preaching ministry in 
every parish, and the abandonment of a number of 
remaining Roman usages. To accede to their wishes 
seemed dangerous to the Queen from a political point 
of view; it appeared much wiser, in her judgment, that 
all who would should quietly accept the new ecclesiasti- 
cal requirements whatever their want of inward acqui- 
escence. Hence the Queen, and the bishops as her 
agents, repressed all innovations beyond those which 
she was willing to sanction, and hence the "Puritans," 
as those who desired such further changes were soon 
called, felt the heavy hand of authority. Most Puri- 
tans, however desirous of what they deemed further 
reform, were willing to wait for its accomplishment by 
the government, meanwhile agitating for governmental 
action and introducing such changes as might be pos- 
sible. The more radical of the Puritan party were not 
content with this waiting policy. They believed that 
God had revealed in the New Testament a pattern of 
what His church should be in membership, organization 
and governmxcnt. To this model they believed that the 
State Church did not conform. It was, in their judg- 
ment, the duty, therefore, of Christian men to come 
out from the State Church and to organize on what 
they thought the divinely appointed plan. By their 
opponents these radicals were naturally nicknamed 
"Separatists." 

It was from a small group of these Separatists dwell- 
ing mostly in the country region about 140 miles north 
of London, on the track of the great road from London 
to York, that that portion of the Separatist movement 

19 



came to which we give the name Pilgrim. How these 
men and women came to feel the Separatist impulse 
more strongly than the inhabitants of most other sec- 
tions of England, is a problem which the inadequate 
state of our Imowledge renders it as yet difficult to 
answer. Bradford gives the probable explanation that 
it was through the zeal of several radical Puritan 
preachers that the Separatist fire was kindled, and there 
is no doubt that the Separatist movement in the region 
indicated was fostered by the labors of several remark- 
able men, among whom may be mentioned as in the 
first rank. Rev. Richard Clifton, rector of Babworth; 
Rev. John Smyth, once a minister of the Church of 
England, who had adopted the Separatist position and 
was advocating Separatist principles in Gainsborough 
by 1605 or 1606; as well as by John Robinson, recently 
shown to be a native of Sturton-le-Steeple in the region, 
and a fellow of CorjDus Christi College, Cambridge, 
who had performed ministerial service in Xorwich ; and 
by a layman, William Brewster, who held the office of 
postmaster at Scrooby, on the Great North Road, and 
who dipped deeply into his pocket to defray the ex- 
penses of such preaching as he approved. Babworth, 
Gainsborough, Scrooby, Sturton and Austerfield, are 
all in near geographical relation to each other. Here, 
through the influence of these men and that of their 
associates a Separatist congregation was formed about 
1606, which speedily divided for safety or convenience 
into two groups, one meeting in Gainsborough under 
the leadership of Smyth, and the other in Scrooby 
which enjoyed the guidance of Clifton, Robinson and 
Brewster, and of which William Bradford was a 
youthful member. 

20 



Opposition soon counselled emigration. That hos- 
tility, it has been claimed by a recent student of Pil- 
grim history, was due to the antagonism of neighbors, 
rather than that of the ecclesiastical authorities, but 
most scholars still believe, with Bradford, that ecclesi- 
astical opposition was the principal factor, though there 
is no inherent improbability in the presence of both 
elements of discomfort. 

At all events the two congregations made their way 
speedily to the more friendly atmosphere of Amsterdam, 
where Smyth's following ran its somewhat chequered 
and indi\ddual course, but from which the development 
of the English Baptist Churches in part traces its 
origin. 

The Scrooby congregation, led by the cautious Rob- 
inson, and believing an independent existence more 
favorable, found a home in Leyden in 1609, and there 
flourished in modest fashion, increased by some acces- 
sions from England, and engaged in rather humble 
handiwork, but enjoying the remarkable spiritual guid- 
ance of Robinson, who sweetened and ripened with the 
passing years. 

The Leyden exiles felt themselves still English. They 
dreaded absorption in an alien nationality, and further- 
more they were moved by a strong missionar\^ hope that 
the}'' might plant what they believed to be the institu- 
tions of the Gospel, if not in England itself, from which 
they felt barred, at least on English soil in the new 
lands across the sea. Then followed earnest debate as 
to where they might locate. Guiana had its advocates. 
The fact that the London branch of the Virginia Com- 
pany was looking for settlers, and in its eagerness might 
overlook ecclesiastical differences, as well as furnish sub- 
si 



stantial and indispensable pecuniary help, led to pro- 
tracted negotiations which resulted in a determination 
of the younger and more physically vigorous minority 
of the congregation to undertake the momentous voy- 
age. Next came their departure from Holland in the 
misnamed Speedwell, the unsatisfactory negotiations 
with the London partners who had been persuaded to 
finance the enterprise, the final sailing in the Mayflower, 
from the English Plymouth on Avhat by our calendar 
would be the sixteenth of September, the arrival in Avhat 
we now know as Provincetown Harbor on November 
twentieth, the signing of the famous "Mayflower Com- 
pact" a clay later, since the Pilgrims found themselves 
without the jurisdiction Avhere they expected to be, and 
must provide for civil order, — all followed by the land- 
ing and the beginning of the settlement in Plymouth 
on December twenty-first. 

Of the difficulties experienced in making provision 
for shelter and food, of the mortality of that first ter- 
rible winter, of perils from the Indians and from false 
brethren, of painful negotiations with the London part- 
ners, and of the struggle of the colony to slowly-won 
independence and self-support, we have graphic and 
familiar accounts from the pen of Governor William 
Bradford. Little can be added to the picturesqueness 
of the story, as he tells it, though historical investiga- 
tion has busied itself now for three-quarters of a century 
and has filled in many details omitted by him from the 
picture. Thanks to these patient labors we know the 
men and women who came on the Mayflower better 
than has any generation subsequent to their own. The 
chief recent contribution to their story is through the 
recognition, thanks especially to the examination of 

22 



Probate Records, that the Pilgrim Colony, after it got 
on its feet when the initial decade of struggle was past, 
was in a larger degree an economic success than was 
formerly supposed. Compared with later settlements in 
Massachusetts and Connecticut that material prosperity 
was meagre, but it was real to a degree not generally 
recognized till recently. 

Picturesque as Avas the Pilgrim immigration, and 
dramatic as were the circumstances of the long voyage 
and of the establishment of homes in the wilderness, 
that significance is heightened by the recollection that 
they were plain men and women of the Enghsh country- 
side. They had among those who crossed the Atlantic 
none of conspicuous social position, of considerable 
learning, or political or military distinction. They Avere 
furthermore a company of youngerly men and women. 
The older members of the Leyden congregation had 
purposely been left behind as physically inadequate for 
its strain. All the more clearly by reason of the absence 
of adventitious aids, the real significance of their enter- 
prise stands forth. It is to some of the elements of 
that abiding importance that attention may appro]3ri- 
ately be directed. 

The outstanding fact regarding the Pilgrims is that 
they came across the Atlantic in obedience to the dictates 
of conscience. It was no hope of material gain, no hope 
of bettering their fortunes from a wordly point of view 
that moved them. They gave up home with all its 
associations, its comforts and the satisfactions of wonted 
relationships, for self-imposed exile in the hard condi- 
tions of a foreign land and among people of an alien 
tongue, and they went on from Holland to carve out a 
place for themselves in the wilderness with all the sacri- 

23 



fices which the great adventure involved. They were 
by no means the only company of men and women who 
have made the effort for similar motives; but men 
honor, and rightly honor, those who thus put the claims 
of what they deem duty above those of material advan- 
tage. It sheds the light of glory of high sacrifice on 
their endeavor, as on the path of those who counted not 
their lives dear to themselves that they might accom- 
plish v/hat they believed to be their God-assigned task. 

Yet here a frequent mistake is encountered. It is 
often asserted that the Pilgrims came to New England 
in quest of religious liberty, and they are praised as 
pioneers in a freedom which the present age justly 
prizes. This is to ascribe to them a distinction which 
they did not possess and to which few in their age could 
lay claim. Their aim was more simple and concrete. 
They were unable to organize their worship, to consti- 
tute their church, and regulate their religious life in 
England as their consciences dictated and as they be- 
lieved alone to be right. They had no give and take 
feeling that they could go one way in such important 
matters while others with equal honestj^ could go an- 
other. Doubtless instances can be cited from their his- 
tory of humane and kindly actions towards individuals 
of beliefs differing from their o^^^l. They were not 
fanatics or without their full share of the milk of human 
kindness. Yet as a general proposition it is certain that 
they thought their o^vn the only right way, and that the 
freedom they sought in coming to New England was 
freedom to walk in it. 

Undoubtedly the ultimate outcome of the Pilgrim 
movement, viewed in the long vista of centuries, was 
favorable to the attainment of that religious liberty 



which America now enjoys; but that result was an un- 
intended consequence rather than an end which the Pil- 
grims dehberately sought. American religious liberty, 
when it came, was the consequence of the necessity im- 
posed on various forms of faith, brought by various 
immigrations to these shores that they find some way of 
■^^•orking side by side in common political allegiance. 
That the Pilgrim point of view was strongly represented 
in America along side of other religious ideals ultimately 
contributed powerfully to the development of religious 
liberty, but that liberty, in the form of a general tolera- 
tion of differing religious convictions was no part of 
the Pilgrim ideal, and to claim them as thus in advance 
of their age is to assert too much in their behalf. 

The' Pilgrims had a simpler philosophy than any ab- 
stract love of freedom. They had not the years of expe- 
rience in the mutual companionship of divergent faiths 
that can alone induce such toleration. They held that 
God is to be obeyed, and they did not question that right- 
thinking men should understand God's commands in the 
same way that they did. In comparison with His will 
all of human enactment contrary in their judgment 
thereto was to be disregarded, no matter what might be 
the personal cost. This principle of obedience to a 
true and higher law introduced a remarkable simplicity 
and directness into their lives. Their goal was clearly 
apprehended and resolutely sought. There \vas little 
chance for wavering or the pursuit of divergent aims. 
It is this devotion to a high and unselfish ideal that 
lends a dignity to what they did, however humble their 
external surroundings and gives them a permanent sig- 
nificance. This apprehension may not in all respects be 
ours. It is hard for our altered age, with its modified 

25 



standards, to enter into full sympathj^ of aj^preciation 
with those who made the maintenance of a particular 
form of Church organization a prime purpose of life. 
We find it hard to appreciate their motives, and not to 
look upon them as narrow and one-sided in their inter- 
pretation ; but, after all, it is not their particular inter- 
pretation but their larger purpose that we must take 
into consideration in estimating their character. That 
fundamental endeavor stands clearly revealed. That 
they sought to do the will of God, fully and unreserv- 
edly, sheds on their career an abiding luster. 

Naturally they sought some definite standard in which 
they believed the will of God to be revealed, bj^ which 
they could try their conduct, and to which they were to 
conform. That standard, they found, in common with 
others of their age and race, in the Bible. To them, as 
to other EfUglishmen of the period, though not all others 
followed it so unreservedly and of set purpose, it was 
the very word of God, divinely given to men as the sole 
and perfect rule of faith and practice. Hence the Pil- 
grims were above all else Biblicists. To the teachings 
of Scripture as they understood them, they would con- 
form not only their own conduct but that of all over 
whom they had influence. From that divine record 
they would derive not only all doctrine as to God's 
purposes for this life and that to come, but all guid- 
ance in the proper ordering of church and state. Not 
that they thought all apprehension of the meanings of 
that transcendent divine revelation had been reached by 
their leaders or their generation. John Robinson had 
told them that "the Lord had more truth and light yet 
to break forth out of His holy word"; but sufficient 
was theirs already to make plain the path of duty, of 
aspiration and of endeavor. 

26 



Yet the Pilgrims loved what was best in their own 
country with devotion. One main reason for their emi- 
gration from Holland was a fear that their children 
might lose their English heritage and become absorbed 
in an alien population. They desired to live under 
their native flag and to introduce into their administra- 
tion the laws and customs of the land of their nativity. 
Their descendants were, with time, and under the influ- 
ence of altered conditions of climate, business, social 
conditions and developing political ideals to seek as 
earnestly separation from the parent country. That 
time was still far in the future when the Pilgrim set- 
tlers came to America. To them England was still 
home, even if a home which had cast them forth, and 
they looked to it ^^^ith affection and brought with them 
as much of law and custom as they could retain in 
obedience to their overruling test of conformity to what 
they believed to be the divine commands. It was in no 
politically hostile or rebellious mood that they crossed 
the Atlantic. 

. Besides all their peculiar freightage which the Pil- 
grims brought with them they carried much that was 
distinctively of the general system of the religious 
thought in which they had been trained. No group of 
men can stand wholly alone, or be uninfluenced by the 
great intellectual trend of their age and environment. 
In their religious outlook the Pilgrims Avere primarily 
advanced and consistent Calvinists. Much that is often 
attributed to them as individual and peculiar is really 
part of their common heritage. Whether Calvinism is 
liked or disliked, whether it is true or false, whether it 
is adapted to the needs of the present age or not, are 
not here the questions. Our endeavor is to understand 
the motives of the Pilgrims as they A\'ere, and those 

27 



cannot be comprehended without a recognition of their 
inheritance. 

The first great element in their conviction Avas their 
conception of God. God was to them the greatest of 
all sovereigns, before whose majesty any earthly sov- 
ereignty was but the puny shadow of a passing cloud. 
His will has disposed all that exists, or may exist, 
from eternity to eternity. His providence extends to 
all events, great and small alike. He is the source of 
all good everywhere. Without Him nothing can 
prosjier. Against His will the strongest of merely 
human sovereigns lift their j)lans in vain. In knowl- 
edge of Him is man's liighest attainment and only 
permanent blessing. Man lives, as the Puritan poet 
]3hrased the thought a decade later than the landing of 
the Pilgrims: 

"As ever in my great Task Master's eye." 

He dwells watched over, led, disciplined, and held 
accountable by God. 

No one can deny the majesty of this thought of God, 
or deny the dignity and significance that it gave to those 
controlled by its power. Its simplicity, its greatness, 
its all-reaching immensity, shed in lesser measure its 
reflection on, and gave a largeness to, those dominated 
by it. This world is no hap-hazard sport of circum- 
stances, nor were they who acted in it, humble though 
they might be in social station, the mere puppets of 
blind fate living out a brief and purposeless existence. 
They were all included in God's far-reaching and im- 
mutable purpose, and, whatever their personal trials 
and disappointments. His Avill regarding them and their 
enterprise would be acomplished. 

28 



Closely associated with this great thought of God, 
was the Pilgrim judgment of man. This too was their 
inheritance. That estimate of man was not flatterinQ- 
to his natural pride. By nature, since the fall of Adam, 
he is evil, of himself wholly incapable of accomplishing 
that which is worthy of divine commendation. But, 
from another point of view, this conception of man was 
among the loftiest ever presented. He may, by divine 
grace, become a fellow-worker with God, a real, though 
humble partner in the accomplishment of the divine 
purpose. He is chosen of God, if God chooses him at 
all, as an instrument by which the divine Avill may be 
accomplished. This touch of the divine gives to the 
meanest life a dignity and a worth of eternal signifi- 
cance. None is so humble that it may not be said of 
him that God has a place for him in the everlasting 
divine purpose, — a place vital, necessary, determined 
and predestined. 

This conception of .man's relation to the divine plan 
inevitably shaded into the conception of man's dut}''. 
That fundamental obligation is to make the will of God 
regnant as far as man's power extends, first of all over 
his own life and then over the lives and conduct of his 
associates. It is a conception of lofty nobility. It 
made the Pilgrim strenuous with himself and with 
others. It has rendered him and his descendants 
largely reformers. Yet it undoubtedly had its un- 
lovely side, as when the generally kindly William 
Bradford, in the second year of the Plymouth colony, 
forbade the festive celebration of Christmas, then well- 
nigh universal in the English homeland; and it has 
given point in times since to that alleged intrusiveness 
in the affairs of others of what has been styled "The 

29 



'New England conscience." At its best it made the 
Pilgrim a man who took life seriously, though by no 
means necessarily gloomily, and who felt that others 
should do so also. It made him a worker in all that 
made for the betterment of the world as he understood 
that betterment. The Pilgrim was no misanthrope, or 
enemy of good cheer on what he deemed suitable occa- 
sions. The harvests of 1621 and 1623 were duly hon- 
ored, and our annual Thanksgiving traces its origin to 
these at first special and occasional celebrations. 

From this conviction that the Christian's funda- 
mental duty is to make the will of God regnant flowed 
a particular interpretation from wliich the j)i*esent age 
has widely departed. It was the belief that the state 
owes support and protection to the church. A^^iile 
state and church were never identified in Plymouth, 
yet it was felt that the state should defend the church 
from false doctrine, and see that its worship was suit- 
ably maintained. Yet while the Pilgrims undoubtedly 
held this conviction, they were less strenuous in its 
application than most of their time, and their record 
for severity in the name of religion contrasts to their 
advantage, from the viewpoint of the present age, with 
that, for instance, of their Puritan neighbors in ^las- 
sachusetts. It M'ould be unjust, however, to attribute 
to them an enlightenment which almost none then pos- 
sessed, and the general dominance of which was to be 
far in the future of their time. Something of this good 
record, as it would now be thought, was due to their 
situation on one side of what became the main routes 
of settlement and trade in New England. They were 
not so severely tried as some of their neighbors. 

The Pilgrims were peculiarly favored by their out- 

30 



ward circumstances for the development of a democ- 
racy. There were, indeed, distinctions among them. 
Some had become members of the expedition for hire, 
and were on the Mayflower as in various capacities of 
service; but there were none Avho could claim rank as of 
the nobility of England in the party. They were a 
homogeneous, self-respecting group for the most part, 
of hard-working country folk, who had been schooled 
in the industrial life of a considerable city, without 
attaining any marked differences of financial status. 
The heads of the Pilgrim households met on a plane 
of unusual equality. They were, furthermore, trained 
in the administration of the Church, and recognized as 
the door of admission to Church-fellowship a mutual 
covenant between the disciple, his fellow-members and 
his Lord. It was, therefore, the natural expression of 
the social status and of the religious convictions of the 
Pilgrims alike, when finding themselves in Province- 
town Harbor, outside the jurisdiction which they had 
expected before leaving England, and therefore with- 
out legal warrant, they bound themselves, on Novem- 
ber 21, 1620, by the Mayflower Compact. By this 
constitutive document they: 

covenant and combine our selves togeather into a civill body poli- 
tick .... and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame 
such just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, 
from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient 
for ye generall good of ye Colonic, unto which we promise all due 
submission and obedience. 

Doubtless the full consequences of this step were not 
thought out. They were not a constitutional conven- 
tion deliberating as to the fitting form of a great com- 
monwealth. They had no intention of abrogating the 

31 



laws of England, subjects of whose kings they felt 
themselves to be. They were a small company, far 
from home, on a desolate shore, on the edge of a vast 
wilderness, who felt the need of government, and of 
the order which government alone can secure. They 
constituted themselves a civil body politic, as they 
formed themselves a church, by a mutual agreement. 
Yet in so doing they showed themselves highly demo- 
cratic, they helped to lay the foundations of American 
institutions in democracy, and contributed to the forces 
that were to work together to make democrac}^ in due 
time, the fundamental policy of the American republic. 
In regard to one final Puritan characteristic, em- 
phasis on education, the Pilgrims certainly were back- 
ward. They had among them only one liberalh'- edu- 
cated man. Elder William Brewster, and even he, 
though he had matriculated in Cambridge University, 
had not gone on to graduation. Nor did any settler of 
even similar scholastic training join the Pilgrim com- 
monwealth till the coming of Rev. Ralph Smith in 1629. 
Though Harvard College graduated its first class in 
1642, few of its early students were from Plymouth 
Colony. Though doubtless there was elementary house- 
hold teaching from the first, as they jDrobably had al- 
ready had in Holland, it was not until 1662 that formal 
statutory provision was made for instruction. Intima- 
tions in the Records imply that public interest had been 
aroused and schools had come into existence before that 
time ; but, in this important respect the contrast between 
the Pilgrim settlement, and the early significant pro- 
visions for education in the Puritan colonies to the 
northward and westward, is striking, and to the disad- 
vantage of the Pilgrims. The explanation is to be 

32 



found in the relatively humble origin of the Pilgrims, 
and in their relative lack of men of intellectual leader- 
ship. Had Robinson, their beloved and learned pastor 
in Lej^den been permitted to cross the Atlantic the 
story might well have been different. New England 
needed in this respect to have the courage of the Pil- 
grims supplemented by the educational zeal of the later 
Puritan immigration before it could take on its char- 
acteristic development. In claiming virtues for the 
Pilgrims, and they are justly praised for many excel- 
lent qualities, service to education cannot be enumerated 
in the list. That this was so was doubtless more the 
misfortune of external circumstances than any deliberate 
rejection of educational claims. 

The survey of the chief characteristics of the Pilgrims 
which has been made shows clearly their abiding claims 
to the respect of later generations. They were plain 
men and women, not eminent for such talents as com- 
mand large success in business, in the field of politics, 
or in the realm of scholarship. Their financial resources 
were very meager. In many important respects there 
was little in their enterprise to promise success. Yet 
they were marked by industry, by a high sense of the 
importance of the undertaking in which they were en- 
gaged, and by a devotion to its achievements that was 
not daunted by difBculties. Above all they were ani- 
mated by a unity of purpose and by a high sense of 
divine guidance which can come only from religion. 
They walked their difficult way as "seeing the invisible." 
That conviction gave to them strength and courage. 

From the solidity and sincerity with which they held 
these principles came a tenacity of purpose, a trust in 
God, and a willingness to meet constant and bitter dis- 
ss 



coiiragement which, as these perils were gradually over- 
come, made their venture an increasing economic success. 
Their agreement with the London Merchant Adven- 
turers was a disappointment to both parties. Their 
attempts to send profitable cargoes to England were a 
failure. By 1627, the partnership with the Merchant 
Adventurers was dissolved on terms which left the Pil- 
grims deeply in debt, yet masters of their further for- 
tunes. They had shown that settlers could live, govern 
themselves and maintain themselves economically in 
New England. Their debts were ultimately paid. 
Their institutions, both in Church and State, showed 
ability to live. Their great demonstration was that 
trans-Atlantic colonization in New England could be 
self-supporting, and even more, it could be a modest 
success. They blazed the road for all who came after 
them. Without them that further and larger settle- 
ment could not well have been. It was their strong 
confidence in God, their unshakeable conviction that 
they were doing His will, and their sense of His gui- 
dance and favor, that won them their success. 

It is peculiarly as men of principle that they have 
their lesson for the generations that have entered into 
their heritage. With few of the external advantages 
which such a labor might seem to demand, a company 
of men and women in no way distinguished socially, 
pecuniarily, politically or educationally above the aver- 
age of the "plain country folk" of their day and gen- 
eration in England, they yet founded the beginning of 
an enduring commonwealth, in the heritage of which 
we rejoice to-day. That is not to say that they did 
not need the reinforcement of the much larger, more 
wealthy, more socially eminent and more educationally 

34. 



alert Puritan settlements that were later to supplement 
their work and into whose larger life they were them- 
selves ultimately to be merged. Yet they were the 
pioneers. To them belongs the distinction of showing 
the way. 

A further and less tangible demonstration was theirs 
in the realm of the spirit rather than in that of material 
things. They stand as a symbol of high resolution, of 
earnest purpose, of dauntless conquest of difficulties. 
How fully their influence as a spiritual example affected 
those who came immediately after them is not easy to 
define. It cannot have been without its heartening sig- 
nificance. But for recent generations the Pilgrims have 
stood as the embodiment of a great ideal, and as such 
have an abiding symbolic value among the forces of the 
spirit which have given distinction to American life. 

Nor is their story without its perpetual challenge to 
their descendants, whether of the flesh or of the sj^irit. 
In their day they were found faithful, and that they 
were what they were and did what they did has put us 
permanently into their debt. Shall we, with our vastly 
greater resources, our immeasurably superior advan- 
tages, our comparative wealth of knowledge, and our 
abounding variety of contact with life, be found simi- 
larly simple-hearted, direct and purposeful amid the 
perplexities of the present turmoiled and needy world? 
They did their work well. God grant that those who 
follow us may have like reason to make the same 
honorable affirmation as they think of us. 



35 



A PUBLIC LETTER FROM THE STATE OF 

CONNECTICUT TO THE CHILDREN 

IN HER SCHOOLS 




Tercentenary Anniversary of the Landing of the 
Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock 

1620—1920 

The State of Connecticut covers a part of what, for 
some years before 1620, had been kno^\Ti as New Eng- 
land. The name "Pilgrims" is given to a company of 
Englislimen who had been political refugees in Leyden, 
Holland, but in that year left Europe for America. 
Most of them came here mainly to secure liberty to 
worsliip God in their own way. The ship that brought 
them was named the Mayflower. Before they landed 
they signed a paper, called the "Mayflower compact." 
In it they agreed to constitute themselves a Colony, and 
to enact from time to time such just and equal laws as 
should be thought most for the general good. 

This was the first government in the history of man- 



kind avowedly founded on the principle that all 
governments derive their just powers from the consent 
of the governed,- — a truth long afterwards stated, July 
4, 1776, in the Declaration of Independence of the 
United States. 

The Pilgrims landed on December 21, 1620. It was 
on a rock}^ shore in what is now known as Plymouth, 
INIassachusetts. The season was the dead of winter. 
The country was owned by England and thej'' were all 
Einglishmen. It was inhabited only by a few red 
Indians, who sold them, from time to time, their title to 
the possession of the land along the shore. 

The Pilgrims set up such a government as was 
described in the IMayflower compact, and named it the 
New Plymouth Colony. They elected a Governor from 
among themselves and also assistants for him. 

In England they had been called "Separatists," 
because they had separated themselves from the estab- 
lished church, and chose their own ministers. Only 
church members could vote at Colony elections. 

In Connecticut, which also was another English 
colony, founded a few years later, church membership 
was not required as a condition of the right to vote. 

Both colonies had town meetings, every year, of all 
entitled to vote, as electors, at which rules were made 
to promote good order. But Connecticut differed 
from Plymouth in having a full written Constitution, to 
which any such rules must conform. 

This Constitution was framed and adopted in 1639, 
at a meeting of the settlers held at Hartford. It was 
the first written document in human liistory of that 
nature, setting up a new government and providing in 
detail certain "fundamental orders" as to the mode of 
conducting it. 



Before 1643 there had come to be four English 
colonies in New England. These were called the New 
Plymouth Colony, the ISIassachusetts Bay Colony, the 
Connecticut Colony and the Ncav Haven Colony. In 
1643, they all joined in creating a confederation, under 
the name of the "United Colonies of New England." 
This lasted until 1664. 

Wliat, now, does the Landing of the Pilgrims in 1620 
mean to us in Connecticut? 

The founders of States have a place by themselves. 
They make history. They create a new and great 
political institution. They step forward into a place 
before untrodden. They set a precedent for similar 
action in constituting other governments. 

The Pilgrims of Plymouth were, in effect, the 
founders of New England. Wlien we set up a new 
government in Connecticut we looked to Plymouth for 
our warrant to set one up by virtue of a social compact, 
made by those whom it was to govern. Under such a 
compact the Plymouth settlers had lived for nineteen 
years. The Connecticut settlers had the benefit of this 
experiment of the Pilgrims. But the Pilgrims had put 
into their compact a statement that they were "loyal 
subjects" of the King of England. In our Constitu- 
tion of 1639 there is nothing of this sort. The Connect- 
icut settlers spoke for themselves only, in voting to 
establish by and for themselves and their successors 
"one Public State or Coirunonwealth." 

The Pilgrims ran great risks, and submitted to great 
hardships in founding their Colony. It took them 
more than two months to make the voyage across the 
Atlantic. Half of them died within the next three 
months for want of proper food and shelter. They 



knew what dangers they had to encounter, but they 
kneAV also, as recorded by their Governor, William 
Bradford, in his history of their doings, "that all great 
and honorable actions are accompanied with great diffi- 
culties ; and nmst be both enterprised and overcome with 
answerable courages." 

This was the spirit in which the Pilgrims imdertook 
their task. This was the spirit they hoped to infuse 
into their successors on the soil of New England. This 
was the spirit in which they came to plant free institu- 
tions in what was then almost as much a New World as 
when Columbus made his landfall in 1492. This was 
the spirit in admiration of which we are to celebrate this 
year the three hundredth anniversarj'^ of the Landing 
of the Pilgrims. 

The State of Connecticut, 
By Marcus H. Holcomb, 

Governor. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 069 223 2 • 



